Only two people out of every ten thousand, 0.0002 percent, were susceptible to ghoulism, and evidence showed that they were probably related to each other. Statistically, a citizen of Atlanta had a higher probability of being mauled by a shapeshifter, but every new case of ghoulism invariably caused a panic, because for those two out of ten thousand there was no cure. Shapeshifters were still human. They lived in houses, held jobs, had kids, and led semi-normal lives. But ghouls hid in cemeteries and gorged themselves on corpses.
When I started looking for him, all that marathon running made no difference. Mitchell had done the exact same thing that most human and supernatural fugitives usually did—he ran a little ways and squatted down in the first hidey-hole he found, which just happened to be the South River Sewer tunnel. I found him and brought him in before the PAD managed to get hold of him.
I pulled off my turtleneck. “Mitchell likes it in the dumping ground. He feels safe, he is fed well and on schedule, and nobody bothers him. It’s probably the best place for him right now. He wouldn’t do well out in the wild on his own.”
My sword followed, then my belt, and my pants. A cold wind hit me. Argh.
“Damn, Daniels.” Luther shook his head.
I glanced down. Huge purple bruises covered my legs. I couldn’t remember how I got them. “Occupational hazard.”
Normally after being treated by Doolittle, everything would’ve been healed. He considered it a point of professional pride. My memory served up an image of Doolittle rolling out of the room. I’m tired . . . Healing my brain had drained him dry. He didn’t heal my bruises because he had nothing left.
I was an ungrateful asshole who took him for granted. Once this was over, I would have to take him out to lunch and tell him how much I appreciated his help.
I shivered. I was down to my sports bra, underwear, and socks.
“You’re not going out there like that,” Julie said.
“These are the rules,” I told her. “Mitchell gets scared easily. He likes to be reassured that I am not carrying any weapons.”
“That’s why Mitchell talks to her. Crazy, right?” Luther set the rifle down and turned a heavy crank on the side of the balcony. A foot-wide metal ramp slid from under the balcony, crossed the line of the fence, and stretched down, halting about five feet above the ground. “I won’t go in there naked, and I am a qualified mage. It’s not just what we put in there, it’s all of the things that spawn in there by themselves . . .”
“Not helping,” I growled.
Luther glanced at Julie and shut up.
I swung my legs over the concrete rail of the balcony and stepped onto the ramp. The cold metal burned my feet. Another gust of wind chilled me, and I felt it all the way down to the bone. How do I get myself into these things?
“Remember, try to keep him in plain view,” Luther said. “I can’t bind him if I can’t see him.”
I started down the ramp. Walking on slippery ice-cold metal thirty feet above hard ground, while a cold wind was trying to scour the skin off my body. If I fell, I’d end up right in the razor wire. Wheeee.
God, that wind was cold.
And how did you spend your Friday night, Ms. Daniels? Out on the town, having a lovely dinner and a dance like a normal person. Yeah, right. When I finally caught up with whoever was behind this mess, I would vent all of my frustration at once. I’d been beaten, cut, clawed, and thrown around like a rag doll; my magic had backfired and exploded in my brain; and I’d lost pieces of my memories. Memories I treasured and required to protect those I loved. I’d nearly lost my family. I had a hell of a lot of frustration built up. A bloody overabundance of it.
“Your second mom is a nice person,” Luther said quietly behind me. “There aren’t many people who care about whether they’re scaring a ghoul.”
I expected Julie to tell him I wasn’t her mom. She didn’t say anything.
I reached the end of the ramp. It terminated right over a rocky outcropping. Perfect. Just perfect. I crouched, sat, and slid down gently. My feet hit the hard stone. My teeth chattered. I wanted to hug myself, but there were things watching me from the darkness. Looking like a victim encouraged predators. I squared my shoulders and picked my way across the rocky ground.
Something shivered in the tall black-leafed bushes to the left. A pair of silvery elongated eyes ignited. The hair on the back of my neck rose. Adrenaline coursed through me, the instinctual fear hot and sharp.
I stared at the eyes. “Piss off.”
The eyes narrowed to slits. The bushes rustled as their owner retreated. That’s right. Keep going.
I skirted a pool of slimy orange goo and came into a small clearing, exactly thirty feet wide. I knew the size because Luther had it mowed once every few weeks. It took five people to do it. One drove an armored lawn mower and the other four guarded the driver.
A large white rock jutted out of the center of the clearing. Next to it a hole gaped in the ground, so dark it looked like it was filled with liquid blackness.
I chose a spot about ten feet from the rock, picked up a stone the size of a grapefruit, crouched, and knocked on a rocky outcropping.
Knock. Knock.
Nothing.
Mitchell required patience. I knocked again, hitting the rock against the stone in a steady measured rhythm. My back was to the brush. I presented an awesome target, crouched and nearly naked.
Knock . . . knock . . . knock . . . Come on, Mitchell. Come talk to me.
Knock . . . knock . . .
Something stirred within the darkness of the ghoul burrow.
I put the rock down and waited.
A long spadelike hand armed with straight, narrow claws emerged, followed by a thin arm, a grotesque head, and then shoulders. A moment and Mitchell squeezed himself out of the burrow and crouched in the open. Moonlight slid over his dirt-colored skin mottled with patches of gray and deeper brown, and set his eyes aglow with eerie silver. His horns, the curved spikelike protrusions on his back and shoulders, were almost six inches long, a full three inches longer than the last time I saw him. Something had terrified Mitchell and his body had responded. A long chain wrapped around his left ankle and a rough band of thick scar tissue encircled his leg right above it. He had clawed at his own flesh trying to get the chain off. If Luther had put him on a chain, he and I would have words once I was done.
Mitchell didn’t move. Neither did I. We crouched, barely three feet between us. Some picture we must’ve made, a naked ghoul and a nearly naked human shivering in the cold, sitting nose to nose.
Mitchell turned his head and looked at the moon, his eyes glowing.
“Tell me about the chain,” I said.
“I found it.” His voice was rough, as if he were grinding gravel with his teeth. “The thing chained to it was dead, so I took the chain.”
So he had put himself on the chain? “Why?”
“Do you not hear it? The call?” Mitchell looked at the moon again. “He’s calling. It’s like a weight. It grinds on you, it pushes and pushes, and it hurts.” He looked back at me, his face contorted. “It hurts.” He touched his forehead. “In here.” His clawed hands slid lower to his neck. “And here.” Lower still to his chest. “Here. And here. In the stomach. It squeezes me. It hurts.”
Sudden rage flooded me. Mitchell had suffered enough. He had lost his humanity and his family. He was a scared, quiet creature who had never hurt anyone. All he wanted to do was to live in his burrow and be safe. And now some supernatural asshole was torturing him.
“Who is calling you?”
“I don’t know. But I feel it. I can see him in my mind. I don’t want to go.” Mitchell looked at the chain. “I don’t want to go. I will die if I go, but the pain is getting stronger. One day I will gnaw through my leg and go.”
“Can you tell me where the call is coming from?”
“So I can go there and make him stop.”
“You can’t. You’re not strong enough. Not strong enough for his magic.”
“I can and I will. I’ve never failed you before. I won’t now.”
Mitchell didn’t answer.
“Let me help you,” I whispered. “Let me make it stop hurting.”
Mitchell’s face trembled. His whole body shuddered. As I watched, the patina of spots on his skin shifted, turning darker. His horns grew another quarter inch. Holy crap. That was crazy even for a ghoul. He was scared out of his mind.
“He will know,” Mitchell whispered. “He will know if I tell.”
“How?”
“He’s sent others to get me, but I burrowed deep and they got scared before they could dig to me. They watch me.”
Damn it. “When was this?”
“The day I fed.”
So on Tuesday. “How did they get through the fence?”
Mitchell leaned even closer and whispered. “They dug a hole. They are waiting in there even now, watching us.”
They dug a tunnel. Of course. Once we finished here, Luther and I would have to find it. “If you tell me, I promise I will kill them and then I’ll find him and kill him, too.”
Mitchell’s skin turned almost black. “No. He has others. Some like me and some like I was meant to be. He has others. He has a man in a cage.”
Eduardo. This was my only chance.
“You will die and then he will send others for me.”
“I have never lied to you.” I scratched the back of my left arm with my nails. A tiny drop of blood swelled. “I will stop him.”
I stretched my arm to him. His nostrils flared. He focused on the blood, his eyes glowing.
“Taste it,” I whispered.
Slowly, Mitchell rested one clawed hand on the ground, leaned forward, and dipped his head. A thick tongue slid from between his teeth and scraped the trace of blood off my skin. Light burst in his mouth, a beautiful fire, as if he had swallowed a tiny yellow star. The veins in his neck ignited with fiery radiance. It dashed down his blood vessels to his heart, through his body, to his limbs.
Mitchell surged upright, glowing, his body larger, stronger, more muscular. Fire swirled around him, caressing his form but never touching. His face snapped into a long muzzle that might have belonged to a dragon or a demonic dog. Horns of fire spiraled out of his head. His eyes flared with bright orange, as if an inferno burned inside him. A foreign intelligence regarded me with cool detachment.
Mitchell cried out. I felt the magic explode inside him and dove to the ground. A blast of heat tore through the clearing, snapping branches. Mitchell shuddered and collapsed back into his old form.
It was so fast, I thought I’d imagined it. Maybe I did . . .
“Holy shit!” Luther barked.
Nope, I didn’t.
Mitchell raised his head. His eyes were still on fire.
“Take it!” he whispered.
The fiery eyes burned into my mind. Magic stretched between us, woven with power and heat. It touched my mind and exploded into fire in my head. Images swirled. A cavern . . . No, the inside of a half-collapsed building. The floors had fallen down and only the outer walls remained. Pale beams of moonlight shining down through the holes in the roof. A human-sized cage suspended from the ceiling. A man in the cage, thin, his clothes torn and bloody. Eduardo. Ghouls. Dozens of ghouls below, blanketing the floor with their bodies . . .
A surge of light and fire, as if someone had slit reality open and cosmic flames spilled out.
A face within the fire. Rough, heavy-jawed, muscled face, with bright black tattoos marking the cheeks and the brow. So humanlike, yet so alien . . . Long pointed ears bearing golden hoops, one after another. A collar of gold inset with bright green jewels. A mane of straight black hair, each hair shaft glowing with a golden core like an ember barely covered with soot. Wings rising . . .
Eyes of fire, filled with arrogance and insanity.
A voice rocked through my mind. “You’re weak. You will die. The betrayer will die. Your city will kneel before me.”
“This city doesn’t kneel, asshole. I’m coming for you. Start praying.”
The vision tore apart and reality took me back into its cold embrace. I blinked and saw Mitchell’s feet as he dove into the burrow.
“Wait . . .”
I felt someone’s gaze on my back. The stare stabbed me right between the shoulder blades. I held still, crouched, one knee to the ground.
A second crawled by, painfully slow.
Make your move. Let’s see how well you dance.
Something exploded out of the bushes. I pivoted and saw a ghoul in midleap, curved claws raised.
There was no place to go.
I rolled onto my back, matching its momentum, and kicked with both feet. My heels smashed into the ghoul’s belly, driving it forward over my head. It landed hard, its back slapping the ground. I flipped and lunged at the ghoul just as it managed to turn on its stomach. My knees came down on its back, hard. The ghoul tried to rise and I grasped the sides of its head, shoved it down toward its spine, locking the vertebrae, and twisted. Its neck broke with a dry crunch like a twig.
The ghoul gurgled, shaking. In a moment it would regenerate the neck.
“Clear shot!” Luther screamed. “Give me a clear shot!”
I grabbed the rock I used to call Mitchell and smashed it into the ghoul’s skull. Tiny drops of blood flew. I pummeled its head with the rock as fast and hard as my arm would move. The skull cracked like an eggshell, the bone fragments caved in, and I crushed the soft brain underneath with my rock.
The ghoul went limp. I jumped to my feet. Silver eyes glared at me from the darkness. One, two, three . . . Too many.
I sprinted to the fence, flying across the rocky ground. Behind me the undergrowth rustled. The sound of claws and labored breathing chased me.
On the balcony Luther thrust his hands straight up, his arms vibrating with tension, turned his palms out, his fingers rigid, and forced his arms down, straining, as if he were swimming. An eerie green glow swirled around him, a glowing nimbus. Julie grabbed the crank of the metal bridge.
Luther jerked his left hand up, fingers curved like claws. Dark roots burst out of the ground in an explosion of dirt clumps and surged upward, sprouting foot-long green thorns. The ghoul to the left of me screeched. Out of the corner of my eye I saw it flailing in a clump of the vines. Luther thrust his other hand in the air. Another ghoul screamed.
I was almost to the ramp. Ten feet and I would be there.
A ghoul dodged the roots, sprinting forward on all fours, and lunged at me from the side. I grabbed its right forearm with my left hand, pulling the arm straight and jerking him down and forward, and slid my right arm over the back of its neck and all the way under its armpit. My forearm pressed on the back of its neck and I dropped down to one knee, bringing all of the force of my body onto my elbow, ripping the soft tissue and crushing the vertebrae. The whole thing took half a second. I released the convulsing ghoul and ran to the ramp.
Three feet from it I jumped. My fingers caught the cold metal, and I pulled myself up and dashed across the bridge. Julie spun the crank, retracting it as I ran. I leaped over the last five feet, landing next to her, and turned around. Seven ghouls howled in impotent fury by the fence, their eyes glowing, their teeth bared.
The smallest of them turned to run. Roots shot out of the ground, forming a crescent barrier about thirty yards in diameter. The ghouls whirled, realizing they were trapped.
Luther smiled. “Oh no, my pretties. This is my domain and you’ve trespassed. There is a price to pay for that.”
Luther took a deep breath, his arms rising as if he were about to take flight. Mag
ic shuddered in front of him, like elastic rope wound too tight. The muscles of his back flexed and he snapped his arms to the side and down, palms up.
The ground under the ghouls moved as if the Earth had suddenly became liquid. They sank down, feverishly trying to free their limbs, but the soil held them fast. A green bubble formed in the center of the clearing, grew to the size of a basketball, and exploded. Bright emerald dust shot out, glowing. Spores, I realized. Millions of spores. The green spores washed over the ghouls. Their movements grew less frantic, then slow, slower still, until they were struggling in slow motion as if their very flesh had gradually petrified. The spores sprouted. A dense carpet of moss in a dozen varieties grew, sheathing the ghoul bodies like a velvet blanket. Delicate pink stalks formed over the barely recognizable bodies. Tiny white flowers opened at the ends of the stalks, releasing tiny dots glowing with gold. The air smelled sweet, like a forest just after a morning rain.
Luther inhaled and smiled.
“Very pretty,” Julie said.
“Well, we don’t just sit on our butts filling out paperwork,” Luther said. “We work for our living.”
I pulled my pants on. My feet were beat to hell from running on rocky ground. My middle left toe was probably broken.
“I thought you promised Curran nothing violent.” Julie handed me my turtleneck.
“No, I promised him I wouldn’t fight a giant.”
“So you obey the letter of the law and not the spirit,” she said.
“Yes.” My teeth finally stopped chattering. I loved my turtleneck. I loved my jacket. I loved my boots. Mmm, wonderful warm boots.
“How come when I do that, you chew me out?”
“Because you don’t do it well enough to get away with it.”
Julie blinked. “What kind of move was that, at the end?”
“It’s from Escrima, a Filipino martial art. I’ll show you when we get a minute, but you will have to practice, because it has to be done really fast for it to work.”
Magic Shifts Page 25